Reading Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief
by WillowMark
Summary: Percy Jackson and the Olympians read a book. A book about Percy Jackson and his adventures.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

**Percy's POV**

It was winter solstice **(because it's so close to Christmas) **and Annabeth, Nico, Thalia, Leo, Piper, Jason, Chris, Clarisse, Katie, the stroll brothers and myself were at Olympus for the meeting, with the gods, who invited us to use come and listen, watching as they fought. Apollo and Artemis about fluting with Thalia, which Zeus was also in, as he also fought with Hera, over something. Dionysus, Apollo, and Hermes were fighting over where to have a party, Ares and Hephaestus were fighting over Aphrodite, who was fighting with Artemis about love. Dad was fighting with Lady Athena _**(big surprise there)**_, about Medusa. Hades and Demeter fighting over Persephone.

"How long do they fight for?" Leo asked.

"Oh for a while I'm afraid, the love to fight." Hestia said.

"Wish I brought popcorn." Travis whispered to Connor.

"Me too." Connor whispered.

"Shh!" Clarisse hissed.

Suddenly a bright and warm light surround thee room, quitting everyone from their fighting. When the light died down, there stood the fates, with others... that were us, but older. We looked at them, Jason meet with older Jason, Thalia, meet with... well older Thalia didn't really look different, being in the hunt and all, Leo meet with older Leo and... well you get the idea. There was also two other, girls, both, have black hair, one has long, curly hair, gray eyes like, Annabeth she wore a blue bikini top, blue shorts, a dark blue long jacket and flip-flops. The other girl had long, messy hair, green eyes, her left arm was made silver metal, both looked about ten or eleven years old.

"Fates, what do we owe, the pleasure of you visit?" Zeus asked.

"You will be reading, a book-" The Fates started.

"A BOOK?! That's it?! That's Book-warms job!" Ares yelled.

Athena glared at him, as Hephaestus, smacked him. Ares about to argue with the god of volcanoes, until Hera spoke.

"ARES! behave!" Hera snapped.

Ares sat back in his thrown with a huff. The Fates cleared their throats before continuing.

"Books, about Percy Jackson."

"WHAT?!" I yelled shocked.

"Yes, about you, Atlanta is not to be harmed Zeus."

"Yes, Fates." Zeus said.

We all snickered a bit, Dad laughing out load. Zeus glared at him, which made him laugh harder. The fates left, handing, a book, to Hestia. Everyone was silent.

"So... whose Atlanta?" Hermes asked.

The girl with the medal arm waved.

"Hi, I'm Atlanta Diondra-" She started.

"That means from the sacred spring." Dad and I said.

"Yeah, daughter of Poseidon."

"WHAT?!" Zeus, Hades, and Dad yelled.

"Hi, Daddy!"

"And you are?" Artemis asked.

"My name is Thalassa, which means from the sea, Jackson-"

I was shocked about this, Paul and Mom, have a daughter maybe?

"Daughter of Percy and Annabeth."

At this I felt my face heat up and I heard 'Ohhhh's' from my friends and Aphrodite.

"W-what?!" Annabeth and I asked.

"Hi, Mom, hi Dad!"

"I'll read first." Hestia said, opening the book to the first chapter.


	2. Vaporizing Teachers

**_I want to apologize if I'm confusing anyone about what's happening so far in the story, I'm not meaning too. If you have any questions, I'll try and explain what's going on. _**

**_Also I forgot to say in the last chapter, I do not own any of the Percy Jackson characters, just Atlanta and Thalassa._**

* * *

**"I Accidentally Vaporize my Pre-Algebra Teacher," **Athena read.

"I love the titles." Leo and Future Leo snickered.

**Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.**

"But you're not, Aunt Hestia. Hermes said smirking. "You a goddess."

Hestia laughed softly, shaking her head, as the demigods and future demigods laughed.

"Oh Hermes." Hestia laughed.

"Hermes, it's in the reading." Artemis said rolling her eyes, though she was smiling.

"I know, but it was still funny." Hermes said smirking and shrugging his shoulders.

Now everyone on the room, was laughing.

**If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is:**

**Close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.**

**Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.**

The demigods shivered, while the gods (**Athena, Poseidon, Hermes, Apollo, Demeter, Hades, Artemis ****_(hey she has her hunt)_****, Hephaestus, Zeus** **_ and Hermes.)_**

"They only down side about having our children. We give them a hero's fate." Hermes said, thinking about Luke.

Apollo put his hand on his brother/ friend's shoulder in comfort.

"I wish we didn't." Poseidon and Athena together.

They looked at each other in shock, before turning away from each other's sight, their faces red.

**If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think its fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.**

**But if you recognize yourself in these pages—if you feel something stirring inside—stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you.**

"Boooo." Nico and Future Nico said wiggling their figures.

The demigods, Hermes and Apollo laughed.

**Don't say I didn't warn you.**

**My name is Percy Jackson.**

"Great, this is in my point of view." Percy and Future Percy groaned.

"Can't wait to see what you think of us." Thalia said smirking.

Percy gulped and paled.

**I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.**

**Am I a troubled kid?**

"Yes." The gods but Poseidon, and the demigods said.

Percy and Future Percy stuck their tongues out at them.

**Yeah. You could say that.**

Everyone, but Poseidon, Percy and Future Percy laughed.

**I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.**

"Sounds like torture." Poseidon said.

**I know—it sounds like torture.**

Everyone laughed.

**Most Yancy field trips were.**

**But Mr. Brunner,**

"The best teacher ever." Future Percy said.

The demigods agreed.

**Our Latin teacher was leading this trip, so I had hopes.**

**Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. **

"Chrion." Dionysus and Athena said who smiled.

"Athena, you smile so brightly for him." Demeter noted.

"He's my favorite Uncle, Aunt Demeter." Athena explained.

"Well, Uncle P, is my favorite, great at parties." Apollo said.

Poseidon smirked.

"Don't inflate his ego, even more Apollo." Artemis said.

Poseidon frowned as Athena laughed high-fiving her. Poseidon glared at them.

**You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons,**

"Figures he would have that, still." Dionysus said, in a bored tone.

**So he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.**

Annabeth rolled her eyes, as Future Annabeth smacked Future Percy.

"Ow, Wise-girl, not everyone, can't be as wise as you or your siblings and your mother." Future Percy wined.

**I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.**

**Boy was I wrong.**

Poseidon paled.

**See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.**

Everyone laughed, most of the gods _**(Hermes and Apollo)**_ falling to the ground.

**And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.**

"Once we take a break I wanna hear more!" Hermes laughed.

"Ok." Percy said.

**This trip, I was determined to be good.**

"If that's even possible." Future Thalia said.

"Not possible." Thalia said.

"Hey!" Percy and Future Percy argued.

**All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl,**

Aphrodite made a face.

**hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.**

"Gross!" The females said.

"Who eats like that?!" Artemis asked.

"I don't even eat like that, and I eat a lot of gross things." Apollo said sticking her tongue out, as he made him a face.

**Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled.**

Hephaestus growled, while his hands went down to his leg.

"I don't judge crip-... disabled people, Lord Hephaestus." Percy and Future Percy said.

"All right."

"Leg hurting you Hun?" Aphrodite asked.

Hephaestus nodded rubbing his leg. Aphrodite went over to her husband and got to her knees _**(Get your head out of the gutter)**_, rubbing his leg for him. Hephaestus smiled as he started to relax, as his wife, help his leg.

"Thanks, περιστέρι μου _**(My dove)**_."

Aphrodite blushed. Hera smiled at her son, and daughter-in-law happily. Ares glared at him.

**He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

Everyone laughed.

**Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension**

Hermes, Travis, Connor, Future Travis and Future Connor shivered.

**if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

"BORING!" Clarisse said.

**"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.**

"Do it!" Ares cheered.

**Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."**

**He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.**

**"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.**

"Wimp, I would have killed her." Ares snarled.

"Ares there will be no killing of mortals!" Hera snapped.

Ares slumped down in his throne saying 'Yes Mother.' Hera sighed, rubbing her temples.

**"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."**

**Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there.**

**In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.**

**Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.**

**He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.**

**It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.**

"Longer than that nephew." Hades said.

**He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, steel, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

"At least you're trying" Annabeth said.

Percy kissed her on the mouth.

**Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker.**

"That reminds me, finished repairing, your Harley Ares." Hephaestus said.

"I'll get it later." Ares snapped.

"You have to pay for the repairs, or you don't get it back."

"Whatever."

"I forgot Ares was like that." Atlanta whispered to Thalassa.

"I didn't." Thalassa whispered back.

"WHAT ARE YOU BRATS TALKING ABOUT?!" Ares yelled.

Atlanta and Thalassa smirked before make a ball of water together.

"Don't you even think ab-"

Ares started to cough as they throw it at him, leaving him soaked to the bone. Glaring at them he shivered from the cold, while everyone burst out laughing, Atlanta and Thalassa the hardest.

**She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.**

"Turns out it wasn't Mrs. Dodds, it was the students that drove her nuts." Future Percy said.

"And no, Thalia it wasn't me, I was quit in that class." Percy said as Thalia opened her mouth.

Thalia closed it smirking.

**From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.**

Hermes, Travis, Future Travis, Connor and Future Connor shivered.

"Oh man that sucks!" Travis said.

"I know." Percy moaned.

**One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."**

Poseidon glared at Hades, who said sorry to Percy.

**Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.**

**Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the steel,**

**and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"**

**It came out louder than I meant it to.**

**The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.**

**"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"**

**My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."**

**Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?**

**I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"**

The elder Gods shuddered.

"Why that one?" Hestia asked.

"He wasn't looking just pointed and it happened to be that one." Percy said.

"Still, it wasn't fun at all." Hades shivered.

**"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied.**

**"And he did this because ..."**

**"Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god,**

"GOD?!" The elder gods, but Hestia and Poseidon yelled.

"Why you little..." Zeus said.

"Father, please have peace, I'm sure Chiron will correct him." Athena said.

Percy looked at Athena gratefully, as Zeus nodded his head.

"Thanks, Owl-Face." Poseidon.

"You're welcome Fish-Face."

**And—"**

**"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.**

"Right as always, dear." Hera said.

**"Titan," I corrected myself. "And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"**

Zeus smirked.

**"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.**

**"—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."**

"Nice way of saying a war that happened for a thousand years in just a few sentences." Annabeth and Future Annabeth said.

"Nice, is right." Apollo said.

**Some snickers from the group.**

**Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"**

**"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"**

"Busted!" Hermes said.

**"Busted," Grover muttered.**

Hermes smiled as everyone laughed.

**"Shut up," Nancy hissed her face even brighter red than her hair.**

**At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

**I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."**

**"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**

**The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.**

"Don't all boys?" Artemis asked smirking.

"HEY!" They boys said.

**Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."**

**I knew that was coming. I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"**

**Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**

"He maybe be our half-brother, but he's not that old." Demeter said.

**"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.**

**"About the Titans?"**

**"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."**

**"Oh."**

**"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."**

**I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.**

**I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped.**

"Athene, can't even do that!" Aphrodite said.

"Don't call me Athene!" Athena said.

"Oh, you know you love it."

"No why do you think I tell you not to call me that?"

**But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C— in my life. No—he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.**

**I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the steel, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.**

"Probably was." Zeus said.

**He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.**

**The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.**

**Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas.**

**We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, and wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.**

"Seaweed-Breath, and Father always fight like that when they're really made at each other." Athena said.

**Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse,**

"Not my daughter... though I dated her mom once, but ended it." Hermes said.

"Um... ew." The demigods but for Atlanta and Thalassa said.

"I know, but she was being bullied and had no friends so, I asked her out."

"That was sweet of you." Artemis said.

Hermes faces was flushed red as he looked at the goddess of hunt.

"Y-yeah, I don't like it when someone is bullied..."

**and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.**

**Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.**

"Smart." Hera said.

"Very." Hades said.

**"Detention?" Grover asked.**

**"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."**

**Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"**

Everyone laughed.

"All satyrs are the same." Dionysus said with a very rare smile.

**I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.**

**I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.**

"Works every time." Hera said.

"Wait you mean they do that on purpose?!" All the demigods said.

"Mmm, it's a look all mothers give to their children."

**Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.**

"Made it myself." Hephaestus said proudly.

"It's really cool, Dad." Leo said.

"I like it, 'cause its cozy." Travis said.

Everyone but the demigods and Dionysus looked at him weird.

"Why were you sitting in his wheelchair?" Poseidon asked.

"I sprained my ankle during a track meet and I had to stay in a wheelchair for a bit, and Chiron let me use it until I was better."

"That's very sweet of him." Hestia said.

**I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

The demigods growled.

**"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.**

"I can't do anything for her." Aphrodite said.

"I feel sorry for the Cheetos." Connor and Future Connor said.

"Yeah." Thalassa said.

**I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.**

**I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"**

**Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

**Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"**

**"—the water—"**

**"—like it grabbed her—"**

"Opps, did I do that?" Percy and Future Percy said smirking.

The room went into a fit of laughter.

**I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.**

**As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—"**

**"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."**

Hermes smacked his forehead along with his children.

"Never guess your punishment!" Hermes and his children said.

Percy and Future Percy blushed, shrugging his shoulders.

**That wasn't the right thing to say.**

**"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.**

**"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."**

"Loyal and sweet." Demeter said.

**I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

**She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

**"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.**

**"But—"**

**"You—will—stay—here."**

"Creepy and mean." Hermes said.

Poseidon glared at his brother.

"Sorry, about that Percy." Hades said unfazed by his brother's glare.

"It's ok, Uncle Hades." Percy said.

**Grover looked at me desperately.**

**"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."**

**"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."**

**Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

**I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.**

"It's not the stare that scares us, it Riptide that does." Nico said, remembering the time he was on the receiving end of it.

**Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

**How'd she get there so fast?**

**I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

"I don't think it was the ADHD." Piper said.

**I wasn't so sure.**

Piper blush, thinking like Percy.

**I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

**Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on,**

"Knowing Grover, he probably was." Leo said.

"He was." Percy said.

**but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.**

**I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.**

**Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.**

"No." Poseidon growled.

**But apparently that wasn't the plan.**

**I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.**

**Except for us, the gallery was empty.**

Ares smirked.

**Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.**

**Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...**

"She most likely did, she knew that she'd be attacking a child of the gods in front of it." Hades explained.

"She has guts for doing that." Poseidon growled.

**"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.**

**I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."**

**She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"**

**The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.**

**She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.**

"Wrong." Nico, Future Nico and Hades said..

**I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."**

"Wow, you held your tongue. I'm impressed." Thalia and Future Thalia said.

"Poseidon is just like that, hard for him to hold his tongue." Hestia said.

"HEY!" Poseidon, Percy and Future Percy said.

**Thunder shook the building.**

**"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

**I didn't know what she was talking about.**

**All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room.**

Hermes and his children smirked.

**Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

"It was a good book." Percy said.

**"Well?" she demanded.**

**"Ma'am, I don't..."**

**"Your time is up," she hissed.**

**Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

Poseidon growled and glared at his brother.

**Then things got even stranger.**

**Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

**"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

The demigods smiled.

**Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.**

**With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

"Love and hate that sword." Clarisse said.

"Yeah." The demigods but for Percy said.

Percy and Future Percy smirked.

**Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous loo****k in her eyes.**

**My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.**

**She snarled, "Die, honey!"**

**And she flew straight at me.**

**Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.**

**The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss!**

"You killed a fury on the first swing?!" Clarisse, Future Clarisse and Ares said.

"Yep." Percy and Future Percy said.

"Nice."

Clarisse and Future Clarisse hi-fived him.

"**Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

Everyone but Hades, Nico and Future Nico shuttered.

"She does that." Nico said.

**I was alone.**

**There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.**

**Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

**My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.**

"Magic mushrooms." Apollo snickered.

**Had I imagined the whole thing?**

**I went back outside.**

**It had started to rain.**

**Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

"Stupid Mist." Jason muttered.

"Who?" Poseidon said.

Hestia laughed before reading the next line.

**I said, "Who?"**

Poseidon blushed, smirking thing like his son.

**"Our teacher. Duh!"**

**I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.**

Ares scuffed, smirking. "THat's cause you are dumb, dummy."

"Ares he's more educated than you, so shut up and let, Aunt Hestia read." Athena said.

Ares glared at her.

**She just rolled her eyes and turned away.**

**I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.**

**He said, "Who?"**

**But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

"Satyrs are terrible liars.'' Dionysus said.

"I can teach them to come up with better lies." Hermes offered.

**"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."**

**Thunder boomed overhead.**

**I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.**

**I went over to him.**

**He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."**

The gods laughed.

"That's Chiron for you." Hera said.

"Oh yes." Demeter agreed.

**I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**

**"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

**He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

**"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."**

**He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**


End file.
